


Clandestine (Philophobia)

by star_child



Series: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, an abundance of lies, intimacy problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 14:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8756731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_child/pseuds/star_child
Summary: (CLAN-des-teen)adjectivekept secret or done secretly, especially because it’s illicit(FEEL-o-fo-bee-a)nounthe fear of love or of falling in love





	

Kuroo kisses him again, slow and loving, sighing into it. He cradles Kenma's jaw with one hand, thumb stroking his cheek in slow circles as the other wraps around his shoulders to hold him close. Kenma's own hands are hardly shaking, fisted in the fabric of Kuroo's flannel.

Someone moves below them on the first floor, and Kenma yanks away with a gasp.

Kuroo follows him, the hand on his face sliding to the back of his neck to pull him forward again. "Hey hey hey," he whispers, rubbing his fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. "Hey, Kenma, it's okay."

"I know," he breathes back, exhale a little shakier than his hands, "I know, sorry."

Kuroo lifts a hand, brushes Kenma's hair away from his face. "You know my parents are super open minded and everything. I promise they wouldn't mind.”

"I know," Kenma repeats with a shake of his head. "I just can't help it. My dad..."

"He's not here, okay?" Kuroo assures him. "Don't worry about him." He slowly strokes his fingers down Kenma's face. "It's just us, right now."

Kenma nods, and Kuroo leans up, kissing his cheek, then a little closer to his mouth, a little closer, the corner of his lips, until they're kissing again.

An hour passes. They watch Adventure Time on Netflix, kiss a little more in the fifteen seconds between episodes. When they have to manually play the next season, the remote gets pushed to the floor as Kuroo rolls them over, hovering above his boyfriend on the small couch shoved into the corner of his room. He nips at Kenma’s lips until he opens them, allowing Kuroo to run his tongue over his teeth and draw a small noise out of him. Kuroo chuckles at it, but dives back in before Kenma can yell at him.

“What time is it?” Kenma manages to ask when Kuroo pulls away to kiss at his cheek. When he doesn’t immediately stop to check, Kenma reluctantly pulls back. “Kuro.”

“Sorry.” He leans in for one more kiss.

“It’s okay.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. What time is it?”

Kuroo pushes himself up a bit, leaving Kenma cold as the older boy moves off the couch to look for his phone. He touches his fingers to his lips as he listens to Kuroo shuffle around his room. They feel swollen. He’ll have to get that to go away before his dad sees.

“It's ten thirty six,” Kuroo says softly from the direction of his bed.

Kenma sits up, suddenly feeling vulnerable still lying on his back, and attempts to smooth his hair down. “I should go,” he murmurs. He's met with silence. “Kuro?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry.”

Kenma can hear him walking, then he's standing in front of the couch again, looking down at Kenma with a vaguely sad expression. He holds out a hand, Kenma takes it, pulls himself to his feet.

“I wish you could stay,” Kuroo admits to the crown of Kenma's head before kissing it. He wraps him in a hug after.

Kenma's own hands come up to fist in the back of Kuroo's flannel. “I do too.”

They stand in silence for another few minutes, until the TV washes the room in red light with the idle Netflix screen, until Kenma's neck starts to ache from pressing one cheek into Kuroo's chest for so long. He turns his head the other way.

“Come on,” Kuroo finally says as he pulls back, “I'll walk you home.”

* * *

It's not that Kenma doesn't like affection. No, that isn't it at all. It's _public displays_ of affection that he really can't stand. He doesn't mean hand holding, that doesn't bother him in the slightest, he even finds it kind of cute. Little hugs and touches are okay to him too, honestly he's mostly too caught up in whatever he's doing to notice other people in the first place.

It only really bothers him when it's _him_. Kuroo can lie all over him when they're alone, hell he can pretty much do whatever he wants. But as soon as they're out in the open, in front of even a single other person or in a place where they could be seen, everything has to be completely hands off.

It doesn’t matter to him how open minded and accepting Kuroo's parents are, the team, his neighbors or that one teacher or the other kids in his class are. All that matters to him is the unpleasant heat that builds in him when Kuroo tosses an arm around his shoulders as they're walking, or grabs his hand when they're talking or literally touches him at all. It makes the base of his spine too hot, his jaw clamp up, his fingers restless.

It’s not a matter of being judged. It’s not a matter of how others see him. It’s not a matter of germs or visible relationships or pda. For Kenma, it’s a matter of intimacy: his own issues with it and how comfortable he feels in any given situation.

Touching is something he holds as high as others do a kiss: if he doesn’t like you, he doesn’t want to touch you. You don't go around kissing people you don't like. To him it’s personal, a way to show how much he trusts others, which is why he hates when strangers or people he hardly knows think they can give him a hug or ruffle his hair or pat him on the back.

And since he’s known Kuroo practically his whole life, trusts and loves him more than any other person, it doesn’t matter a bit to him how they touch, so long as no one else can see it.

* * *

It's 11:42pm when Kenma softly slides the front door shut behind him, turns the lock and toes his shoes off. The light in the living room is on, which means his father is still awake, but maybe if he’s lucky he can just quickly duck upstairs and –

“Kenma,” his father calls. He flinches, removes his foot from the squeaky floorboard that gave him away. “Come in here.”

He steps on lighter feet into the living room, flutters nervously around the doorway, watching his father watch the television.

“Do you know what time it is, Kenma?” his father asks conversationally. As if he doesn’t know damn well what time it is.

Kenma swallows hard past the stone in his throat, repeats the time to him.

“That’s interesting, I could have sworn your curfew was eleven on the weekends.” His tone is still carefree, as though he’s dancing around the topic of the weather and not the infinite trouble his son is about to be in.

Out loud Kenma says, “I missed the bus. Had to wait for the next one.” In his head he thinks about the extra half hour he spent with Kuroo’s lips on his neck, listening to the clock tick but thinking nothing of what it meant.

“And where were you tonight that you were forty minutes late even with a missed bus?”

“Akaashi’s,” he lies quickly. “He lives in Nakano. Half hour bus ride, so…”

His father switches off the TV, rises slowly to his feet and makes a show of stretching. Kenma swallows, sinks backward as his father turns and starts to advance. “Akaashi’s, huh? Who was there tonight, at Akaashi’s?”

“Ah, well…” he dances another few steps back, wondering if it would be better to put his shoes back on and run outside or dash up the stairs. “Akaashi, obviously, and ah, his – girlfriend.” The word sticks in his throat, and he almost smiles at the thought of Bokuto in girl’s clothing. “Some of their friends from volleyball,” he adds, figuring he’s safer with more people present in his story.

He anticipates his father’s next question, decides he’ll probably be safe in his room as long as he doesn’t trip on the way there. “And what about that _boy_. The neighbor.”

He makes a wrong move, plays dumb. “Akaashi’s neighbor? Do you mean Bokuto-san? He was there for a while –”

“Don’t bullshit me, _boy_ ,” his father snarls, air of false casualty finally falling as he stalks forward and shoves his face in Kenma’s. “That boy who lives in the next neighborhood, I see the way you look at each other. Was he there?”

Kenma forces himself to stand still, can’t stop his hands from balling into fists behind his back. He thinks about the hours he spent with Kuroo tonight, dinner with his parents, homework in his room, just a little bit of making out before he realized how _late_ it was and walked home as fast as he could with the ice on the sidewalks.

“No,” he mumbles. “I haven’t seen him all weekend.”

* * *

Of course it would be too much to hope that he could sneak out without his father noticing. It's not even like he's really sneaking out, either, he just wanted to leave without being asked five hundred questions about where he was going.

He thought he’d be safe, since he hadn't heard him anywhere in the house.

But that’s because he's sitting on the front porch, eying Kuroo, standing awkwardly on the sidewalk.

“Kenma!” Kuroo exclaims when he sees him, eyes lighting up with relief. “Ah, Momo and Izumi are waiting for us, so…” He gestures with one hand, a sly smile tilting his lips.

“Right,” Kenma mumbles, catching on. “Bye, Otousan.”

He eyes them like he knows something is up, but waves them along with his hand, looking away. Kenma scuttles off the porch without waiting for further conversation.

“Really?” he asks when they’re a block away, fingers now linked in the pocket of Kuroo’s jacket, “Your _cats_ are waiting?”

Kuroo laughs, quiet but genuine. “Well he knows my parent’s names. And he always let you go easier when he thinks there’s other people around.”

“Yeah,” Kenma replies, feeling inexplicably giddy, “I guess you’re right.”

* * *

Kenma tries to avoid eating dinner with his father. And he tries to avoid it too, because it’s just uncomfortable for both of them. They have no common interests or middle ground, nothing to bind them but the blood that sits heavy in Kenma's veins under his father's gaze of mild distaste.

“How was school?” his father finally asks, startling Kenma away from his vegetable inspection.

He jerks, glances up. “Ah, good. Fine.”

He nods. “How about that sport you do?”

“Good,” Kenma repeats, eyes darting around the room. He figures he should probably volunteer some information. “Pretty funny, I guess. Kuro’s been doing this thing where whenever someone starts arguing or fighting he starts chanting ‘worldstar, worldstar.’” He's too caught up in the memory of Kuroo shouting to notice the frown overtake his father's face. “He did it over the weekend, when one of his cats was hissing a bird, and the other day –”

“You've been spending an awful lot of time with that _boy_ lately,” his father spits, cutting him off.

Kenma startles again, worse than before as his fingers tighten so quickly around his chopsticks that he thinks he hears one of them snap. “He's my friend,” he mumbles, burying a piece of broccoli under his rice.

“He's _trouble_ ,” his father argues, stabbing a piece of beef with his own chopsticks. He glares at his plate a moment later, removing them so he pick up the piece normally. “I don't know where his parents went wrong with that boy, he has no manners, he wears earrings…” He shakes his head. “He even got you to dye your hair. Such a bad influence.”

Kenma's head ducks as his shoulders rise, annoyance turning to genuine anger deep in his chest, seeping out into his bloodstream and the rest of his body with every word. “He's my _best friend_ ,” he finally bites back, sharp in the silence after his father's short rant. “He's a good person, and he's helped me a lot.”

His father snorts, and again Kenma debates: his room or the street. He can't go out in the snow in house slippers… “Helped you what? Learn how to vandalize? Steal? I'm sure he's helped you get into all kinds of trouble.”

Kenma stands abruptly, chair screeching against the tiles, and storms to the door. He kicks off his slippers and jumps into his boots as fast as he can, grabbing his coat and flying out the door before it's even on. He ignores his father calling after him, leaps over the snowbank on the sidewalk to run on the road, where there's no ice. The cold air and icy sleet bite his cheeks, sting his eyes and neck, but he runs as fast as he can.

He nearly collapses at Kuroo's front door, but his mother is there to catch him in a gentle hug, tell him Kuroo is at work but usher him up to his room anyway, and he curls up and screams into Kuroo's pillow after she slides the door shut.

* * *

The train ride to school is often a quiet affair. The winter sun can't quite breach the mountains before their stop, so the sky fades from an inky purple to a deep salmon to a pale peach during the duration of their ride. The other passengers stand or sit around them, bundled against the cold outside, most with their eyes closed as they listen to music or podcasts or the rattle of their own movement.

On most days, Kenma plays his PSP until the rocking of the train gives him a headache and he’s forced to put it away, Kuroo watching passively beside him. Some mornings they’re both too tired, and Kenma will lightly lean his head against Kuroo’s shoulder, and he’ll lean over in return. The train car is usually empty enough for Kenma to feel comfortable in doing so, but every once in a while…

A head of soft, untamable hair tickles his neck, and Kenma’s eyes snap open.

Kuroo is slouched in his seat, head turning side to side on Kenma’s shoulder. “Kenmaaaa,” he whines, pressing his nose into the fabric of his uniform.

His eyes dart around at the other passengers in the car before landing back on Kuroo. “What?”

“I don’t wanna go to school.” He tilts his head up to pout at Kenma. “Skip with me?”

Kenma stares out the window across from them, shoulders and back stiff under Kuroo’s head. “No.”

Kuroo nudges upward, face closer to his neck, lips dangerously near his skin. “ _Kenmaaa_ …”

“Don’t touch me, please,” Kenma mumbles, shifting to the left, away from his clingy boyfriend.

Kuroo’s head lifts from his shoulder and he frowns down at him. “Are you alright?” he asks quietly, concern etched in the small crease between his eyebrows.

 _“He’s trouble,” his father argues. “Such a bad influence.”_ Kenma stares at the moon studs in Kuroo’s ears. “I’m fine.”

* * *

Kenma twirls the ball between his fingers, watching the team crowd around Lev and Yaku.

“We’re so happy for you!”

“I knew it!”

“Have you guys fucked yet?”

“Yamamoto, shut up!”

“Sorry!”

“You guys are adorable together!

Lev is beaming, arm around a flustered but smiling Yaku.

Kuroo comes up beside him, places a light hand on the small of his back. “They’d support us, you know. If we told them.” Kai wrestles Yamamoto into a headlock, serene smile not leaving his face. “They’d support you.”

The heat slides down his spine to where Kuroo’s hand rests, his fingers clench and unclench on the ball, and he steps away.


End file.
